Italian thoroughbred starting with F

Had you asked me six weeks ago whether I'd ever buy an Italian car,  my answer would have been a sure "no." My upbringing has endowed me with a robust lack of confidence in anything from the romanesque world, maybe with the exception of food, although parma ham still can't quite match bierwurst. In our family, there was no doubt: if you cared about quality, there was no other option than to buy German (because you couldn't afford Swiss or the Swiss didn't make it). Within this paradigm, one's search for a new car was limited to Ford (never mind that it's in fact American) and Volkswagen. Mercedes and BMW were too expensive, Porsche had little utility hence a waste of money, and Opel was ignored for whatever reason. The only thing southern European brands guaranteed was misfortune. Japanese were reliable, and cheap, but if you bought a Toyota, a deep, long economic recession would no doubt be imminent in Europe. Now imagine my bewilderment when I woke one morning a few weeks ago, realizing we were in fact the new owners of a 2005 Fiat Punto. Punto Cult, to be precise. A lovely little macchina. It should bring us places where we like to go but never got to because public transport doesn't go there or has already left by the time we wake up on Saturday mornings. Places like trailheads, domaines skiables, and friends' homes. In the first few weeks, though, our little Fiat has only brought us to places I'd rather avoid: the strip mall, IKEA. The irony. When you live in a city apartment, where streets are narrow and often clogged, buying an old, gasoline-fueled car may seem like be a somewhat irrational decision. Isn't it a step back, in times of moving toward a sharing economy with electric, self-driving vehicles, and a city in which cars are few and on the move, not parked 99% of the time? A parked car, though, is still better than a driving one, or so I tell myself, and our Punto is destined to get lots of rest. As jeunes conducteurs, we have to save on gas anyway to be able to afford the insurance.